District 84 plans celebration for improved test scores

SLEEPY EYE – District 84 Superintendent John Cselovszki told the school board Thursday that he has invited the Minnesota Commissioner of Education and other local dignitaries to attend a planned celebration regarding Sleepy Eye Elementary School recently reaching reward status in Multiple Measurement Rating (MMR) tests.

“We’re planning a celebration since the elementary school made reward school status and the high school made fantastic gains,” Cselovszki said. “I’ll set the date after I learn when the commissioner can come.”

Cselovszki said the elementary school is among the top 20 schools of 131 state schools rated. Not all schools received a rating.

Recently returning from Washington, D.C. as a Minnesota Association of School Administrators (MASA) member with the Federal Advocacy Committee, Cselovszki said he met with all Minnesota delegates and Minnesota Department of Education staff about the No Child Left Behind waiver renewal, special education reauthorization, local control versus too much federal oversight, increasing E-rate funding from $2.2 to $5 billion, trying to keep Perkins vocational funding from becoming a block grant that would create winners and losers according to grant-writing ability, plus the Affordable Care Act.

“It was an extremely busy and meaningful trip paid for by MASA,” Cselovszki said.

In other business, the board approved:

Donations of $600 from SouthPoint Federal Growth & Giving, $500 Sleepy Eye baseball program discretion and $200 upkeep for Don Boelter Service to Baseball future award winners, and $100 to the elementary library from an anonymous source.

Dashir Management Services Inc. annual report from Facility Manager Doug Domeier. Recent projects included refurbishing the high school gym floor and adding gym wall padding, remodeling the football concession building and adding a patio, installing a audio/video entry system with three desk stations using Safe School funds, landscaping improvements, installing two filtered drinking water stations designed to fill water bottles, among other items.